Chitose-shimo site is situated in Maizuru-shi aza-Chitose, in the Maizuru-Ōura Peninsula which has a distance view of the Wakasa Bay. This site has been found by archaeological survey of the board of education of Maizuru-shi, since 1988. Because of reconstruction of the official road, this site was urgently excavated two times in 1999. As a result, we found ritual construction and a lot of archaeological objects: bronze objects like bracelets and mirrors, over 700 iron objects and iron shreds, over 1000 beads and stone imitations of various objects.
In 2000, T. Matsumoto (Director of the excavation of Chitose-shimo site) asked H. Nojima (Kyoto Buried Cultural Properties Investigation Center) for arranging and drawing the material excavated at this site. However this was not realized for various reasons. Excavated materials have not been fully arranged and published after the excavations: they were exhibited for the public only in the site.
The department of archaeology of the Hiroshima University and the board of education of Maizuru-shi exchanged the memorandum in 2006 and made a convention in 2009. Then the system for publish of the excavation report was arranged.
As a result of study, although some ritual sites are also in the Tango Peninsula, we demonstrate that Chitose-shimo site is the biggest ritual place in the middle of Kofun Period on the coast of the Sea of Japan under the circumstances. In this site, people had thrown abundant objects away: Chinese bronze mirrors of the Eastern Han Dynasty is represent, and there are cast iron celt and various iron objects of the beginning of the Three Kingdoms Period, various beads like curved beads, cylindrical beads, and their imitations. We could suppose that it had been a kind of rite to put these objects for sea-god. Also in the Okinoshima Island where three Munakata goodness are enshrined, same kinds of ritual objects were excavated: we think this supports our supposition.
Imported beast-band mirror and pottery of the second part of the first half of Kofun Period signify that this ritual activity had continued from the second part of the first half to the middle of Kofun Period. However these objects were excavated from the area only 3 m in width for reconstruction of road and we have to say the excavation area was very limited. Accordingly, it might as well say the whole amount of these objects would have had been at least several times larger. Even by the partial excavation, we found more rich objects than funeral objects of local chiefs in the second part of the the first half of Kofun Period. Therefore it is possible to suppose that this site had been formed by the intervention of Kinai Dynasty.
If we consider it as the sea-rite by Kinai Dynasty, it would have been done by Kinai-Saki Dynasty which had not have trade port. By the study of literatures, it is said that this Saki Dynasty had made much of external policy: this is different from Ōyamato Dynasty. This dynasty is guessed to have constructed military alliance with Paekche Dynasty also by the seven-branched sword. If Chitose-shimo site had been the ritual place for praying safety of voyage in the Sea of Japan, it is possible to say that we offer important archaeological evidence for supposing that this dynasty had constructed alliance with Paekche of Korean Peninsula, by way of the Sea of Japan. In the 5th century, a little later than the period of this site, it seems that the external trade route from Ōsaka Bay to the Inland Sea of Japan had become major by Huruichi and Mozu Dynasty, and the coastal ritual sites had begun to be scattered on the coast of the Inland Sea of Japan. However, even these ritual sites of the 5th century on the coast of the Inland Sea of Japan could not be comparable with Chitose-shimo site, about excavated objects.
As explained above, we can consider Chitose-shimo site as the large-scale ritual site which proves indirectly the external trade at the beginning of Kofun Period by way of the Sea of Japan.